[bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:50:37 -0400
MessageHi Kim,
Commendations on adding those accent marks, and resisting the urge to fix the
misprints. I know that the temptation to do so can be nearly irresistible. I've
encountered that temptation on many occasions, so I feel your pain when having
to let those pass uncorrected.
However, I was uncomfortable while reading your description of how you modified
the text of the Scholz story. The author had his reasons for using, or not
using, punctuation in a certain way. That was the style in which he chose to
write the story. It is not up to us to help readers understand what the author
intended, or alter the author's style because we think it will make it more
readable, particularly when the alterations were based on "impressions",
guesses, of what the author meant. It is our responsibility to preserve the
author's style. Copy editing is not a part of the proofreading process. Most
importantly, it is a violation of our volunteer agreement to alter the text.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Kim Friedman
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 7:48 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
Oh, thanks for telling me. Anyhow, the book I proofread was a SF anthology
compiled in 1995. It's called New Legends and the authors are Greg Bear and
Martin Harry Greenberg. If you can't get it from Bookshare, you might be able
to find it somewhere. I'll tell you the book was very straightforward except
for two stories called High Abyss by Gregory Benford and Radiance by Carter
Scholz. Benford used greater-than signs to indicate the beginning of
conversation and lesser-than signs for close quotations rather than the usual
punctuation. This is challenging because some Braille displays can't deal with
those marks, in particular, my device called the BrailleNote MPower would
actually spell out "greater-than" "lesser-than" and that's awfully hard to read
anytime you encounter it on the display because it takes up much too much
space. Fortunately for me, the signs did show up (I haven't downloaded the book
in its finished form to look at it on my display so I can't swear it will look
the same). The story by Scholz had weird punctuation throughout. He'd use a
whole lot of commas and dialog was indicated by a dash at the start of
conversation and no marks whatsoever to indicate its close. There were no marks
to indicate interrupted speech. I was concerned the reader might have a hard
time with the story because of it. I couldn't use the usual way of indicating
interrupted speech. If something modified a statement or thing and if I had the
impression it was parenthetical, I surrounded the modified part with
parentheses and used ellipses to indicate interrupted speech. I also put in
accents for words like the A in Sao Paulo or the acute E in café. There were a
couple of typos in this story and of course I couldn't fix them which bugged me
no end. If I were reading this on my display, I think I would have been sort of
confused by the story. Fortunately for me, I did write about this stuff to
Carrie Karnos and of course I mentioned this in the comments section before I
checked in the book. I don't know how sighted folks would have perceived this
story, but I was really concerned about its readability for people using
Braille devices. Regards, Kim Friedman. P.S.: I don't know if you'd mind, but
I'd like to write you off list and you can write me if you like. Then we could
write about off topic stuff which won't get us in trouble with the list. K.
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tim Syfert
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 2:35 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
Thanks, Kim, but I am sighted and not eligible to download library books. Tim
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kim Friedman <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 8:26 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
Hi, Tim, I saw those books you mentioned in the Bookshare collection.
Congratulations. It's always a delight to see stuff you worked on ready for
other people to read. It still is delightful to me. Incidentally, if you like
SF, I just finished proofreading a SF anthology which is in the Bookshare
collection. Boy, what a challenge that was. Regards from a fellow proofreader
and wishing you much success, Kim Friedman.
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tim Syfert
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 2:57 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
Valerie, I am a proofreader. It was a formatting problem. Everything is okay
now. Thanks.
Tim
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Valerie Maples <vlmaples@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 9:13 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
What you are saying toggles everything on or off, style wise, Tim. You do
not need to release it to download it again. Just go to your checked out book
page and the last column after the books name is RTF and clicking it will start
a new download.
I still think it is probably either a formatting or scanner problem. Are you
the scanner or the proofreader? I am a little confused by your wording.
I will be gone all day tomorrow, but maybe Mayrie or someone else can walk
you through possible problems and solutions...
Valerie
On Oct 14, 2011, at 2:27 PM, Tim Syfert wrote:
Valerie, I highlighted the whole text and clicked on italics and the whole
text became italics. I'm going to release the book and then download it again.
I'm also going to read the manual. (grin) Tim
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Valerie Maples <vlmaples@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:51 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Italics
It sounds like you might be pulling down regular in the font menus which
removes all font formatting including italics.
Hopefully it is easy like that.
Another option could be your scanning software if you scan as plain text.
Valerie
On Oct 14, 2011, at 6:00 AM, Tim Syfert wrote:
Hi Everyone,
As proofreaders, we are suppose to keep all italics in the book, right?
I have Word 2003 and when I set up a book for proofing, it takes all the
italics out. Does anyone know what could be set wrong? It's a real pain to put
them back in one page at a time. Thanks. Tim
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